


Duty and Desire

by GwendolynGrace



Category: Gladiator (2000)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Yuletide, Yuletide 2005, Yuletide New Year's Resolutions Challenge, duplicate post
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-12
Updated: 2013-06-12
Packaged: 2017-12-14 17:33:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/839528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GwendolynGrace/pseuds/GwendolynGrace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Cicero? Do you find it difficult to do your duty?”</p>
<p>“Sometimes I do what I want to do. The rest of the time, I do what I have to.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Duty and Desire

149-155 CE

He was born in the snowy lands, north of where Hadrian had drawn his line on the ground – literally – a scant lifetime before his own began. Of his mother, he had barely a vague recollection. Of his father, they still told tales by firelight. They told of raids over the Wall, of occasional skirmishes into the Roman territory. Not that the legionnaires would ever have admitted any trouble. “Pax Romana” was not to be lightly overwhelmed by a few scrawny, dark-haired, insane bastards who painted their bodies blue and fought otherwise unarmored. 

But the Legions would not tolerate such anarchy, and they had raids of their own. It was on such a raid that he had run from their hut, escaping his mother’s arms, to watch the horses and the men who seemed almost to grow upon their backs. A cavalryman plucked him from the mud as easily as a stalk of rye, and carried him away once more.

At first, he was too excited to be frightened. Then the realization that he was among these foreigners, rough men with rough, uncivilized ways, struck him. Though not yet old enough for a naming day, he knew he could not let them know his sire’s name. If the horseman had kidnapped him knowing he was chief’s son, then they would ransom or torture him soon enough. (He didn’t believe that they would boil his head, though – that was only one of Auntie’s stories.) If they did not know…perhaps they would have their joke and let him return.

But they did not. The horseman tossed him out of the saddle and into the hands of boys barely older than he. He spoke in sharp syllables, and the boys took heed. They brought him into a tent where women stripped him, washed him, combed hair that had not been untangled in days, all the while jabbering at him. One of the women held his chin between her finger and thumb, and applied something to his face. He flinched; she slapped him; he held still. When she finished, she put him in a fresh tunic and put sandals on his feet. Then she fastened a belt of bronze loops around his waist. She pointed to the door and took his hand.

He was taken to another tent, this one full of steam and smells. She gave him a tray, which he held, fearing another slap. She piled it with meats, bread, and fruit, beckoned him to follow.

The officers inclined their heads, not in a respectful way, but as if approving of their new acquisition. By the time he realized he was not to be returned, he had followed the woman halfway around the tent. He thought perhaps he should throw the tray down and try to run; but before he could move, a soldier caught his wrist, took the tray, and pulled him into his lap.

The soldier spoke to him, and he didn’t understand. The soldier smiled, though, and asked something of his friends. “Cicero!” someone across the room called back.

“Cicero,” the soldier repeated, tapping the boy’s thin chest with a finger. “Cicero.”

The tray sat beside them on the soldier’s table. The soldier tore a hunk of bread away from the loaf, broke it in half, and gave half to the boy. Stuffing the other piece into his mouth, he said something else to the others. They laughed, and the boy did not like the sound.

The soldier must have felt him flinch. He reached for his cup, offering it to the boy. “Bibi, Cicero,” he said, smiling.

The smell of wine nearly knocked him back off the soldier’s lap, but he took a tentative sip. It was sour and heavy and tingled on his tongue. He made a face and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. 

The officers laughed again, and the soldier let him down off his lap. Seizing the moment, he ran from the tent, but in the confusion and firelight and bustle of the camp, he saw that escape was impossible. Night brought cold, and it was far too cold away from the fires. He found his way back to the kitchens.

“Hey!” a girl called to him urgently. “Yes, you!” she hissed, beckoning. “Come here!”

He went to her, astonished that he could understand. As he came closer, he saw that despite her draped clothes and elaborate hair, she was one of his people. “Are you from the Clan of Two Lakes?” he asked hurriedly.

“What? No, but neither are you anymore,” she said, pulling him along. “Come back to the kitchens.”

She explained things in a shorthand that he found dizzying. They were slaves; he would need to learn to speak and understand the barbarian language; he must be careful around the officers. “They’re all right, some of them,” she said grudgingly, “but you’ll want to watch yourself. What’s your name?”

“Mum calls me Pelt,” he told her.

“That’s a baby-name.” He didn’t answer; only hung his head. “Did someone give you a name inside?”

He chewed his lip. “One of them…he poked me and said ‘Sissero.’ I don’t know what that means.”

“It’s a name, stupid,” the girl said without sympathy. “They don’t have names that mean anything, only sounds. They call me Portia. Cicero? Hmph. Well, you might grow into it. Come on, then.” And she led him back to the cook-fires, where he was set to stirring a pot.

Hours later, the woman who had brought him to the officers’ tent found him. She jabbered at him, and he shook his head. He didn’t need to understand her to tell she was angry. Portia, who had stayed close by all evening, answered the woman, pointing at him. It seemed to help. Portia turned. “Cicero, this is Hesta. She’s in charge of the kitchen slaves.”

Still adjusting to the odd collection of sound that was supposed to mean “him,” Cicero looked up at Hesta. His upper teeth worked at his lower lip.

“Adesti,” Hesta said, motioning him to follow her. He hoped she was going to show him where to sleep. For once, he was right. In the tent, several of the boys had laid out beds on straw. He recognized some of the boys who had turned him over to Hesta for scrubbing. She brought him inside and lit an oil lamp efficiently. She stripped him; he shivered while she handed him a less handsome tunic for sleeping. Then she pointed to the pile of thin blankets in the corner of the tent, and, still speaking in that rough language, made a vague gesture at the open spaces on the ground. She blew out the lamp and left, tying the tent flaps shut on the other side.

 

155 – 163 CE

 

After a few weeks in the camp, and with Portia’s occasional help, Cicero begins to understand. His own speech is still broken and halting, but he can recognize words like “Pot” and “Porridge” and certain longer phrases make sense, such as “Fetch water,” or “Serve the officers.” This he does nearly every night, for they were working on a fortress and not out fighting. It seems odd to him that soldiers would spend time building stone structures – he always thought they could only destroy. But then, he reasons, they had built the Wall, too.

The officer who had named him, he learns, was the same man who had taken him in the first place. The footsoldiers call him, “Praefectus,” but they called a few of the officers that. The other officers in the tent call him, “Gallus.” He smiles at Cicero when Cicero serves, and while the others are sometimes impatient with him, he is always kind. 

The officers share tents in a row in the center of camp. They have been here a long time, though, and they have spread out around the area where they are building the fortress. Some of the officers have put up tents of their own. Gallus and Marcellus, whom the others call “Tribunus,” each have their own tent. They answer to General Flaccus, who never takes his meals with the others and is barely ever seen outside his own spacious quarters.

Portia warns him to avoid Marcellus. This is difficult, for he is made to carry buckets of water for the officer’s bath. Once, he pours too quickly, and Marcellus beats him for it. 

That night at supper, serving the men, he is sore from his bruises and stiff with the aches. Gallus beckons him and chucks him on the chin. “Have the boys been rough with you, because you are smaller?” he asks.

Cicero shakes his head. He pulls away to serve the meat around. When he serves Marcellus, his hands tremble on the tray, just a little, but Marcellus takes a slice and doesn’t appear to notice.

Later, he is about to turn in his tunic for sackcloth and crawl into his makeshift bed, when Portia comes to find him. “Gallus wants you to help him,” she tells him, and leads him to the tent.

Inside it smells of spice and oil. Gallus has furs on his bed and a thin, but intricate, rug on the floor instead of hay. Two oils lamps throw shadows against the walls. Gallus is kneeling in the back of the tent, before a small statue of an armoured man. 

Cicero waits, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Hesta will be wanting his serving tunic. He fingers the belt absently, wondering if he should scrub the kohl lines off his eyes. 

Gallus kisses his fingertips, presses them to the statue, and rises, turning to him.

“You sent for me?” Cicero mumbles.

Gallus nods. He sits, not on the cot, but on a stool: three wooden legs, attached by a seat of leather, with a single pin halfway down the legs to keep them together. He holds out a hand, palm up, to bring Cicero to him. He unclasps the belt, turns the boy around, lifts his tunic, clicks his tongue at the wounds on the boy’s back.

“What did you do to deserve this, then?” he asks.

Cicero steps away carefully. “I…was helping a Centurion to bathe,” he explains, “and I poured hot water too quckly.”

Gallus stands. “Tomorrow morning, you will attend my bath,” he tells him. “Go to bed, now.”

 

He wakes with the others, pulls on his sandals, and hurries to the fires for bath water. He sees to it that a tub is filled and ready for the centurion. He brings up two extra buckets to pour, and is very careful to control the flow over his master’s head. Gallus is almost too tall for Cicero to pour. The water sluices over his hair and flattens it, making it almost as dark as Cicero’s own.

Gallus has many scars, but his muscles make them stand out against his skin. Drops of water roll down his arms and chest as he rises from the water. Cicero drops the bucket and fetches a towel from a bench to one side of the tent. Gallus dries each foot before stepping into his sandals, which Cicero bends to fasten for him. Drops of water fall onto his head as he bends over Gallus’s feet.

Gallus reaches down and catches him by one arm. He hauls up. Cicero’s breath catches in his throat. He was careful! Gallus never beat him – why would he start now?

But instead of cuffing him, Gallus takes his chin between thumb and forefinger. “I find no fault,” he says softly. “You have learned much already,” he continues. “I didn’t capture you to waste you on the likes of Marcellus.” He points to his tunic, which Cicero fetches. “I’m entitled to a servant,” he says as he pulls the tunic over his head. “Tell Hesta you’re moving to my tent.”

 

Cicero expects Hesta to be angry, but she nods as if expecting this. She gives him a second tunic, warmer than the short one he has been wearing, and a bedroll with a stuffed sack for a pillow. She takes the bronze belt back, but gives him a leather one to wear.

He still does chores with the rest of the camp, but when it’s time to serve supper, Hesta tells him to go and wait for Gallus. He tends the brazier, warms a pan for the foot of Gallus’s cot, finds a corner where he can lay his bedroll. He almost falls asleep, but pinches himself awake each time. 

Gallus comes in and Cicero jumps into action. He hangs the helmet on its stand, removes the armor and threads it onto the cross-pole. He unbuckles Gallus’s greaves and sandals, setting them aside. Gallus nods approvingly. 

“It’s too cold for you to sleep over there,” Gallus says, pointing at Cicero’s makeshift bed. “Come keep me warm.”

 

Cicero learns to serve Gallus, to please him, to tend his horse, to clean his armour. He learns his master’s habits, how long he prays, the foods he particularly likes or dislikes, how to use just a touch of scent in his bath to make the effect of washing last longer. He learns to ride. He grows, as boys do, and Gallus gives him tunics even better than his old ones. Sometimes, Gallus even gives him a coin or a scrap of cloth to trade for himself. Once, Gallus gives him a bronze cuff to wear. 

He never sleeps in the corner, even in the summer.

The fortress walls go up. Bretons trade with the Romans and there is always plenty to eat. They build a kitchen inside, and then a bath. Soon, Gallus says, they will have stables and proper living quarters, too.

The camp receives word that a general will come to inspect them. This general has won many battles, and is in the favour of Marcus Aurelius, the Divine Emperor, himself. Cicero wonders how he ever thought his father a great chief, when compared to the stories told of the Emperor. But he is not given much time to wonder, for it seems there is much to prepare. 

Efforts to build the fortress are doubled. The infantry drill on the fields by day and polish their arms by night. Gallus takes his cavalry out on long patrols and makes long reports to General Flaccus.

“If we already have a general, why is this one more important?” Cicero asks late one night.

“This general has the ear of the Emperor,” Gallus murmurs. 

“Is he coming to take General Flaccus’s place?”

Gallus laughs. Cicero’s cheek bounces where it is resting on Gallus’s shoulder. “Maximus? No. He’s a fighting general, not a policeman. Probably wants to take some of us to the front.”

“Where is that?”

“Oh… south. West. Wherever we’re needed.” He breathes in and out heavily, then shifts to his side. “Sleep, lad.”

Cicero wraps his arms around Gallus’s back, and drifts to the rhythm of his master’s even breathing.

 

The general is spotted by scouts two days later. He is two leagues away when the troops muster to the call of assembly. He is a league away as General Flaccus reminds the men to be on their best behaviour. He is at the gates. He is walking among them. He speaks to Gallus, who speaks back. They laugh. Cicero likes the way General Maximus laughs.

Gallus turns to his alae and gives an order. The alae barks it out. Maximus mounts quickly and a unit ride out together, Gallus and Maximus at the lead. Cicero runs to the stables and borrows a pony. He joins the back of the unit, with the drummers and the standard-bearer, and follows the column into the countryside. 

They never saw the attack until the first arrows hit them. A soldier mid-column screams and falls from his horse, an arrow protruding under his arm. Gallus calls the column to turn immediately, but too late; the wave of men, armed with crude spears and scythes, hits them before they can build speed. Cicero grabs hold of his pony’s bridle, but the creature rears in fear at the smell of warfare. He falls. The standard-bearer is thrown, also. Without thinking, Cicero runs to him and together they hoist the banner aloft again. A Pict, his eyes blazing with bloodlust, swipes at them with a wide dagger. Cicero stumbles backward. He is unarmed. 

The knife is warm as it opens his cheek.

 

“Damn fool,” he hears as if from miles away. “Mind that the wound is clean.”

“It’s clean,” another voice says. “It’s clean, but….”

“I know.”

“What was he doing out there?” a third voice.

“Laucus says he grabbed the standard, when Aranthus went down.”

‘I _did_?’ he thinks, and then nothing.

 

His cheek burns like Vulcan’s forge. That is the first thing he knows, when he wakes. The next is that Gallus is also in the hospital, a few beds away. He tries to sit up when he hears his master’s voice in pain.

“Back to bed!” the surgeon orders. Cicero cannot but obey.

They take Gallus’s leg the next night. He dies before morning.

 

The General walks among the men, pausing here and there to speak to one. He has a kind smile. It matches his laugh. When he sees Cicero, his face clouds in sympathy. He comes to the side of the cot.

“You’re the lad called Cicero?” he asks.

Cicero can only nod. Even if he could move his jaw without pain, he is too awed to speak.

“They said you took up the standard in the skirmish. Do you remember it?”

He shakes his head. 

“You were Gallus’s bodyservant, were you not?”

Nod. It occurs to him that the General is asking him yes and no questions on purpose. Suddenly aware that he is a slave, Cicero stares at his hands. He should not be so bold as to—

“You can look at me,” the General says gently. “I’m just a farmer,” he tells him with a self-deprecating grunt. “I have a farm in Spain. I miss it.”

Cicero cannot believe this. That a great General only wants to talk about farming? Impossible. Yet he listens, rapt, as General Maximus Decimus Meridius tells him of his life outside the army. Then:

“What would you think of coming to see Spain?”

Cicero’s eyes fly up to the General’s face. There is no mockery there. “Gallus spoke highly of you, at the end. I can use a bright lad with courage and wits. It’s a much better future for you than staying here.” 

Here, Cicero thinks, where Marcellus could decide _he_ wants a warm lad in his bed. Here, where there’s mud and cold and snow and no likelihood of buying freedom, even if he wanted it anymore. His people would no longer recognize him, let alone welcome him back, now. Here, where soon, General Maximus would no longer remain.

It occurs to him, even as he nods his agreement, how rare it is for an officer to present anyone with a choice. 

 

163 – 177 CE

Spain was more than beautiful: It was paradise. The breezes that swept constantly, but mildly, through the open archways of the farm – more a palazzo than a hovel – fought off the midday heat elegantly, and kept the summer nights cool enough to sleep. Cicero tasted fresh olives and agreed with his master: No other olive could ever taste as succulent.

They left for long months at a time to campaign, but Cicero came to cherish their returns. During one long leave, nearly eight years after Cicero joined the household, the General’s wife, Flavia, bore him a son. When they left for Gaul and Germania, he took their carved images with him in a little pouch. These he kept near him always. He prayed with them every day, as their travel allowed: sometimes only a few minutes; sometimes for an hour, while the army made camp around their tent. Once a week, he groomed his own horse. He said that it pleased him to do a simple task. He took his wine well-watered, his stew thick with meal, his oatmeal with honey, his cheese soft, and his bread any way he could get it. He disliked olives, saying they were never as good as his own, and yet they made him yearn for his orchards and fields. 

He slept alone.

One day in Gaul, the scouts brought word of a market day not too far from camp. Nodding in wisdom, Maximus allowed the men to draw lots: five from each company could go to the fair. He allowed Cicero to go, as well, if he wanted.

Cicero wanted. He had a little money of his own, saved up from times when Maximus rewarded him and there was no opportunity to use it. He walked with the troops to the edge of the marketplace, but once there, lost himself in the bustle and noise. The colours of bright cloth, the smells of cooking food and smoking wood, the cries of merchants and jesters, all set his heart thumping with a new pulse. 

“Pears?” a girl called to him. “Fresh pears!”

Cicero turned; she smiled. As he smiled back, he felt a familiar tug. 

He had already discovered that most girls didn’t mind his scar. This one apparently was no different. She probably thought him a soldier, he reasoned, but decided to let her think so. Most girls preferred soldiers to slaves. He bought her a ribbon for her hair later, and a leather cuff for his own wrist.

When he returned, the General had him pour wine, and then Maximus invited him to pour himself a glass and sit. Every so often, he had discovered, the General liked to talk with him as if they were just two men. Sometimes it only lasted a few minutes; sometimes they sat together into the night, until Cicero remembered that the General’s armour needed polish, or that he had better lay in more coal for the brazier during the night, or that the General needed his sleep. 

Tonight, they talked about the coming campaign. Germania, the lone front on which they still had foes. Maximus spoke of their habits, their warriors so big as to resemble giants, their ferocious fighting style and their barbaric speech. 

“I never meant to join the army,” he said, after his fourth cup of wine. “My father…he thought it would be good training. See the world a bit; learn some tactics we could use on the farm. I never expected to be good at it.” He pulled his cloak around himself. “I never expected to live so long from home.”

“If you weren’t good at it, you’d probably be dead,” Cicero observed softly.

Maximus looked at him sharply, and then laughed. “You’re probably right! Cicero, did you ever expect to be a good servant?”

The question with its implied compliment struck Cicero so oddly that he blinked and almost rocked back on his stool. “I…I don’t think it’s a matter of what we expect, sir,” he said in his slow, practical way. “I think we do as we’re fated to do.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps you are right. I wonder, though, should I have forced you into my service? Should I have given you a better choice?” He didn’t seem to want an answer, nor could Cicero even form one. Not serve Maximus? He could think of no greater honour than to be where he was, in the General’s tent and in his confidence. And if he occasionally wondered what it would be like, for Maximus to forget his wife, and to beckon to Cicero and say, “Come keep me warm,” well, what of it? If occasionally he longed to wrap his arms around the man whose wife called him Meridius, to drift into slumber by feeling, rather than hearing, the rhythm of his heart and breath – well, that was just a boy’s dream. He was too old for such things now, anyway. 

The General brooded a moment longer. Then, inhaling loudly, he slapped his knees. “Well! Tomorrow it’s off to Germania, and the Emperor’s last campaign for peace.”

 

177 – 180 CE

Germania is a dismal place. Cold as a witch’s tit in winter, and sultry as a Turkish bath in summer. It is a long campaign, pushing the Teutonic tribes back through forest and across plain, over fords in the rivers and through passes in the mountains. Privately, Maximus worries that the Emperor might not live to see the end of his own wars. The thought drives him to chase his quarry even more relentlessly. Finally, the General rings them in by a forest with trees such as Cicero had forgotten could exist. They somehow give the impression of squatting and stretching all at once, with trunks as thick as two men, but attaining heights unequaled by any structure Cicero has seen. He supposes there are buildings in Rome that rival these trees. Sometimes, he hears the men talking of the Imperial City and its wonders. Like his master, he longs only to return to the olive groves and the warm breezes of Spain. There, trees have proper leaves, graceful and soft – not thin and pointed like a hedgepig’s needles.

Acceding to the Emperor’s wish, Maximus sends an envoy to the Teuton chief, but Cicero knows there is little hope of surrender or truce. The General knows it, too, and prepares his troops to move at the first sign of trouble. He rises from his prayers that morning, kissing the figures of his wife and son as he always did, and tucking them into their safe pouch. He gives no order to Cicero as he leaves, wolfpelt cloak about his shoulders; after all this time, his servant knows how to make ready for his return.

For Cicero’s part, he goes through his motions that day unwilling to believe that anything could happen to Maximus. He accepts the danger, of course, just as does the General – in the army, every man came to understand how closely death stalked him – but Cicero has learned from Maximus that worrying would do no one any good, nor would it get supper to the officers on time. And they would need their meat and bread, when the battle ended: the wounded would need their strength, and the hale would want to celebrate. 

He hears the drums; imagines his master reminding the cavalry of their orders, telling them not to fear Elysium. When the archers loose their rounds of flaming arrows, he can see the blaze through the canvas of the tent. The air smells of smoke and blood. 

A shout goes up in the camp. Cicero ducks his head out of the tent to see the young Prince Commodus and his sister arrive. Rumour had it that Maximus was hated by one, loved by the other. Cicero scowls; the sooner they were away for Spain, the better. Between the Senators (and here he grunts once, thinking of the way Falco watches him – as if he would give him the satisfaction!) and now the Royal Heir, the General might just be tempted to surrender himself to the Teutons.

Cicero stands a while longer, watching through the tent flap. Commodus mounts his horse and gallops away; Lucilla, more practical, orders hot water for a bath. A short while later, they hear the news from the front: Victory. Cicero grins as he goes about his afternoon chores.

 

And then…then it all changes so quickly. Quintus…Cicero would never have pegged him a traitor. But then, what choice did he have? Even Maximus wouldn’t let Cicero give him his sword. The moment they leave, Maximus in tow, Cicero knows what he has to do. Maximus had asked him, just hours before, if he found his duty difficult to perform. He had answered in his usual “yes and no” way…but now, duty and desire blend so perfectly that he feels touched by the gods….

As he gathers up his master’s prized possessions, the idols of his wife and son in their pouch, and a few trinkets which would help him bribe or pay for what he needs, Cicero makes a mental catalogue of allies. Octavius would be loyal to Maximus; Porcius would never believe any lie Commodus concocted about treason; Decius could be trusted to pass the word through the ranks, and moreover would write to Cicero to tell him where the army would camp; if he can reach Valeria at her husband’s estate in Gaul, she will shelter him for a time….

 

Duty and desire combined sustain him through long nights. Duty and desire press him forward, convince him that Maximus cannot be dead. He hears from a caravan of camp followers that the General escaped and that Quintus suppressed the report. Cicero spares a grudging moment of respect, even though the man will never be the leader his master was. Is. Will be again.

But duty and desire can only carry him so far. He comes to Spain, to his master’s homestead, far, far too late. The sight still haunts his dreams. But even in the dust, there is hope: Someone laid at their feet, then was taken away. 

He makes camp in the olive grove that night, unable to bear being near the graves he dug for them. Within a week, someone arrives with a deed adorned with Commodus’s seal. Cicero moves on before he is considered property to a master he never met.

He gets a good price for the brassware and some of the other valuables he packed. He pays a scribe to read the tablet that arrives for him from Decius: the army will winter in Ostia. Cicero makes for their camps, where he and Decius can think of what to do next. Was Maximus captured? Killed, perhaps? For long months, he cannot say.

Decius's bed is warm, though, during the long winter nights. His shoulders are not so broad, and his body is longer, thinner, but he smells of horse and saddlesoap and leather and sweat. When he sleeps, his breath is as even as anyone's, and his heart beats strongly in his breast. Cicero wonders if he can learn to let go.

Then, a few weeks after the buds open on the trees, caravans on their way north bring him word of a Spaniard gladiator, hero of Zucchabar’s pitiful arena. Rumour has it he had been a deserter. Cicero asks a few well-placed questions: No, the fighter never removed his helmet; yes, he had only recently appeared in the arena; no, he was unstoppable – he could take on a half-dozen men at once and still prevail. And would this wonderous spectacle remain in Zucchabar? No, for the Emperor had declared 100 days of games; surely, the gladiator was on his way to Rome.

So duty and desire once more direct him to the Imperial City, to see for himself if the whiff of instinct would bear fruit. Decius gives him some gold to get him there. Years before, Cicero mused that the trees in Germania might have rivalled the great heights of Rome. They didn’t come close. The temples! The palace! And above all, the Colliseum, towering high enough to make a man dizzy if he looked straight up at it.

He waits. And he watches. And he listens. Before leaving for Rome, they had thought of many possible outcomes. Cicero even considered insinuating himself into Senator Falco's bed, but rejected it. He is too recognizable, and Falco is well entrenched in Commodus's pocket. But the men are loyal - no one is impressed by the new commander. They saw Commodus for themselves; some of them know he is but a shadow to their great Caesar. They can be ready to fight. All they need is their general.

 

_“Do you find it difficult…to do your duty?” Maximus asks him._

_Cicero pours the wine. “Not when the thing you want to do is also the thing you are given to do. It’s only—” He breaks off, remembering his place._

_“Only?” Maximus smiles at him. His smiles are always so kind._

_“Only that sometimes…the thing you are given to do is almost, but not quite, the thing you want. When what you must do brings you just to the edge of what you want, and no further. You can see it, but not touch….”_

_He turns, in his dream_ (for this has to be a dream – it _has_ to be, Maximus never, not once) _and the General is standing right in front of him. Maximus takes his face in both hands. He traces the scar on Cicero’s cheek with his thumb; kisses him…. Cicero smoothes his master’s short hair, returns the kiss…._

_“Come keep me warm.”_

Cicero wakes. It is time. All has been arranged; Gracchus has paid more gold and silver than Cicero has ever seen in one place. He rolls his pack into his cloak efficiently, cracks open the door of the brothel where he had pressed three coins into a woman’s hand to let him sleep a while, away from what he called his living quarters. The street is empty. He slips out in search of the route that will take him to the stables, where horses wait for him and his master.

But something goes amiss; greased palms must have loosened lips elsewhere in the city. Guardsmen wait inside the stable; they take him before he can even think to fight.

“Kill me,” he begs them, but the centurion spits on the ground and sneers.

“We have better uses for you,” the soldier tells him as they tie his hands and drag him along with the horses.

From that moment, to the end, it is an all too brief hour or so. They hoist him onto the horse, noose around his neck, hidden from view by the tree and the mist. Knowing it will seal his doom, Cicero warns Maximus anyway.

“Maximus!”

The soldiers are swift about spooking the horse. Cicero struggles for air, kicks involuntarily, and watches for the doorway to Elysium….

A burst of pain flashes across his eyes. Seconds later, someone grabs his legs and hauls up. Air rushes back for a few precious seconds. He looks down. It is Maximus. Tears spring to Cicero’s eyes – pain and gratitude combined. But no – Maximus must not linger.

“I'm sorry," he chokes, but too late: the archers loose their volley. "Go!” he shouts with the little life remaining in him. “GO!” _Meridius…._

No, he thinks, as the door opens for him upon bright fields and sunlit olive groves, it is not difficult to do one’s duty. Not difficult at all.


End file.
